Now wait one second here in regards to science. Science is not the truth. Science does not purport to be the truth. Don't get me wrong, science has furthered mankind so very far, and the benefits have been so universially undeniable, that you can't knock its usefulness. This, because of science's reliability; the ability to recreate precise experiments and accurately measure the resulting data. Science, at its best, attempts to explain in language (that of mathematical and scientific formulae), how reality functions, not why or who, as in who controls it all (here you could put forth the whole disinterested creator stuffs...)

I think it's important that we not rely too heavily upon the "science is truth" tack. It is a good point to a certain degree, but valid theological questions can be posed that go beyond just the "logic vs. faith" argument. I embraced atheism fully when I realized that consciousness is what you make of it. Instead of foisting my sins on the devil and my good works to some higher power, I took responsibility for my actions...me. Some cosmic ancient snake-demon apple peddler with a pitchfork didn't make me do something bad, that was me. Accountability is reason enough to do good. REASON. Not because some book from some desert in a far country supposedly says that I should abide to some code etched into stones taken from some crazy god up on a mountain. Because IT MAKES SENSE to be good.

In other words, no Hocus Pocus mumbo jumbo needed, folks...

By what authority can you just declare it impossible for science to do something? It would have been thought impossible to go to the moon in the early 20th century. But we did.
String Theory predicts a host of new particles, the Higgs field and its associated Boson. All of which were out of reach of any kind of experimental evidence. Now the LHC at CERN is reaching those energies and it's already looking like they may have confirmation of the Higgs particle. This is genuinely HUGE.

Things once thought impossible, made possible by science.


The first cause argument, is a self contradiction. Thats the point I'm trying to make.
If you argue that the universe couldn't just exist on it's own, then you have to beg the question of where did the maker come from. And his maker, and his, and his and so on ad infinitum.
If you claim that "god" always existed, then you contradict your first assertion.

As I've said before, science would love to find something suggesting the existence of a god. Many, many have tried to find evidence. Absolutely nothing has been found, and nothing science has discovered has even hinted, as of yet, for the need for one.

As far as you wanting 3 examples , I don't even know if there are three. Conservation principles, uncertainty principles, quantum effects, are all I know. If you're calling this faith, are you saying that faith isn't a good reason to believe something? Because I agree.

Finding the Higgs Boson would be mighty huge.

Well, not really. The ancient scriptures tag God as eternal.....long before the ancient philosophers started getting/recording the idea of conservation of matter. Any person who looks into scripture will quickly see that God does not exist in chronological time nor is he bound by it like we are.

We as humans do not have the vocabulary nor the capacity to fully understand it (I know I certainly don't).....much like we do not really grasp what "eternal" is other than giving lip service to the abstract concept.

One surely imperfect image might be a looking at a timeline from above and seeing every decision point (branch) along the way ......AND having the ability to simultaneously jump in along side the action.

Jukeshoe - I really like your thoughts in your post (the multi sentence one). If you do not mind, can you expound on what you believe to be truth and/or the source of truth?

Oh man, in things like that I'm agnostic. "Truth" is probably nothing more than a meaningless chaotic background of interstellar static for all I know. I don't need or want to know what truth is. Existence is uncertainty. Descartes' "demon" that deceives the perceptions, if you will.

I think truth is an ideal or an archetype that supersedes reality, very much like a "line" in geometry. Where in reality do true "lines" exist, in the strictest mathematical definitions? Nowhere. It's an ideal. A concept. Truth may not exist in reality either. For all I know "truth" is also just an ideal, a concept.

I would like to clarify a few things. Firstly, science =/= truth, at least in my understanding, but rather science = trying to find the truth, or answers, or what happens/is happening, and/or predict what will happen.

If you accept some concept as absolutely true, why bother learning any more about it? That is essentially, to me, the central tenant of what is science. Trying to learn more about it. This is where religion differs. Religion states (typically) the way things are, whereas science asks why they are the way they are, and if they really are the way they are perceived.

Thinking in these terms, I think that the answers science provides are ultimately wrong, continually. But better answers are always being searched out and discovered, only to be replaced by better answers and more detailed understanding.

All of this is to say that just because we don't understand something doesn't mean we shouldn't try, nor that we can't understand a bit better, always.

An example in the context of my previous post: when I graduated High School, I had been taught that there were nine planets orbiting our sun. No more, no less. Currently, there are thought to be thousands upon thousands (or millions or billions) of planets, but only eight orbiting our sun. Science has changed its answer to the question, "How many planets are there?" in just the last 20 or so years, in more than one way.

What changed was what we define a planet as. Pluto is still there. When things change, it is because science has refined the answer. Very rarely is something that is accepted in science completely wrong.

For example, Newtonian physics works brilliantly for objects of a mass and velocity that we deal with on a daily basis. But for extremely massive objects, where gravity becomes very strong, or things moving near the speed of light, newtonian physics breaks completely down. That doesn't mean it's wrong, but Einstien figured out that newton's laws are really an approximation. Relativity is a better aproximation. Relativity is exactly the same as Newtonian physics with a better understanding of how space and time can be distorted.

The religious seem to think this is a weakness of science. The fact that science discovers it's own errors and corrects them, or gains a better understanding is one of it's greatest strengths. That shows that it's working.

Religion on the other hand just makes crap up that it couldn't possibly know, has no evidence for, can't show any logical argument for, is self contradictory, and makes claims that are constantly shown as hollow. Religion has never proven a single thing. Nothing. Nada. Zip.